FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Fifteen

The Secret

I reached in every direction I could to grab the ladder I'd seen as darkness roared past my ears, but all my fingers found was more air. I felt like I was falling forever--how fucking deep was the basement?? In my panic, I reached out and touched something, but not with my fingers. It felt like an orb, almost. It was deep in my gut, and when my thought brushed it, my plummet suddenly slowed to a steady crawl, like I'd turned into a feather instead of a rock.

I blinked, gasped, and lost concentration, causing me to plummet again. Frantically I tried to focus on the little ball in the pit of my stomach once more, and I desperately latched onto it with my thoughts. I started floating again. I focused on it as hard as I could, not letting my aching groin or sore limbs from my manic flailing distract me. After what seemed like several minutes, I finally saw a dim pinprick of light slowly grow below me, until I could see a circle of metal floor approach at a lazy pace. Eventually, I landed with a soft puff of dust and broke my concentration.

Almost immediately, my head swam and the world spun. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the enormous shaft I'd fallen down. Who makes a ladder shaft that's fifteen freaking feet wide? That's so unnecessary! No wonder I'd fallen in. My stomach cramped as I felt my appetite return. Even though I'd only eaten maybe two hours ago, a bout of sex and using my Gift had already depleted whatever blood-sugar I'd managed to replace. I didn't have any food with me, so I was just going to have to tough it out this time.

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, then pushed myself up to my feet and looked around. The shaft had emptied into a massive corridor, easily twenty feet wide and just as tall, floor to ceiling comprised of some dull, un-rusted metal, a pair of painfully bright electric torches every ten feet, and all of it coated in about a half a freaking foot of dust. Clearly no one had been down this way in a long time. Well, except for the big, flat footprints in the dust leading down one of the two directions. I glanced the opposite direction, where the corridor looked like it went on for easily a thousand feet before vanishing from sight. No point even looking in that direction. I didn't even see any doors.

I followed the direction of Leon's footprints instead. This way went on for a good while too, but after about two hundred feet it banked right. I followed it and found myself in another corridor looking like it stretched forever. Gods, how big was this freaking basement already?

At least there were doors now. They broke the otherwise blank walls of the corridor sporadically, seemingly with no pattern. The footsteps stopped at several doors, where the dust had been cleared in a semi-circle on the floor. Leon had gone searching. For what? Food? Supplies? A rock to crawl under to hide form Rika and me like a friggin' coward?

Wow, okay. Hungry Nola was a cranky Nola.

I sighed and kept following my brother's tracks. They continued for probably seven hundred feet, still occasionally stopping at doors, until they ended at a T intersection. The corridor I was in either continued forward or turned right. Leon's feet turned right, so I did too.

The new corridor was just as tall, but not quite so wide, maybe twelve feet across instead of twenty. The electric torches here flickered occasionally instead of burning steady, and a couple were burned out entirely. I kept my eyes open, flicking from the floor to the corridor ahead, watching carefully. Somewhere in here was the elevator, and Agnes or the guards could come down any minute. I wanted to find my brother alone first. I was still sure he wouldn't come out, otherwise. He'd been awfully freaked.

The footsteps ended at a nearby door. I made to open it but stopped and perked up my ears. Somewhere not far from here, I could hear a low thumping. It wasn't a machine, I didn't think--it was arrhythmic, almost manic, but it was faint. I glanced at the door again. Leon might be behind it. But that noise was... well, _weird._I was practically on fire with curiosity. In the end, my concern for Leon won out and I threw open the door where his footsteps ended.

The space beyond was pitch dark, and my eyes refused to adjust. I blinked a few times, to no avail. I poked my head through the doorway and called meekly, "L-Leon...? Leon, are you here?"

Silence.

Then a click. And another. And another. Click. Click-click-click. Click-click-click.

Two glowing red eyes appeared in the shadowy blackness, followed by a low, guttural growl. Whatever it was, it was feral, and it wasn't friendly. Instinct froze me in place--fuck, really? Now I pull a Leon?!--as it slowly shuffled forward, each movement accompanied by a click-click-click as its claws tapped against the metal floor.

It hadn't attacked yet, but now I could see teeth in addition to the eyes. Yellow, jagged chunks of teeth, sickly in color and shining in the faint glow from the torches behind me. The creature made a noise like a yelp, but lower and wetter, and jumped at me.

I finally moved, falling backwards and scrambling frantically away from the door. The creature pounced on the space where I'd been, the shoddy light of the fading electric torches finally illuminating something from a nightmare.

The thing moved on four legs, and might have been some kind of feral dog or wolf once, but not now. It was hairless save for a patchy black mane that ran along its spine, and its skin was a pinkish-red like uncooked meat, pulled taut over bulging, misshapen muscles. Patches of sickly black scales stood out on its elbows and shoulders. Bony protrusions jutted out from its joints, and two long ridges ran along its brow. It had no lips, just a gaping mouth full of foul, cracked fangs and a purple tongue that lolled madly out its mouth. Oily black goo dripped from its maw, sizzling when it hit the metal floor. Good gods, that thing had the serum in it...

The jagged claws on each of its four paws clicked against the metal as it turned, and a hairless prehensile tail whipped around behind it. Some kind of barb was attached to the end, almost like a scorpion. Its red eyes burst with horrid luminescence as it locked its gaze on me and pounced again.

I wasn't frozen this time, thankfully. I rolled out of the way and actually felt the cloud of dust hit me when it landed where I'd been a split second before. I stumbled to my feet and yelped as I ducked past the stinger coming at my head. How was I supposed to fight this damn thing? I had no weapons!

You always have a weapon.

Ollivander's words rang in my head like a punch, and I felt my teeth clench at the memory of him. Of what he'd done. Hate bubbled up in my gut. Screw it. Use it.

The creature turned to face me, and I reached out the way I had when I was falling earlier, but this time I reached out toward the Thing. I found the little ball in its gut, low and heavy, and I nudged it, swinging my left foot around at its face while I did. I kicked the thing, and I pushed the ball, hard as I could, in conjunction with the kick.

The effect was spectacular. The combination of the force of my kick and my warping its directional gravity while simultaneously doubling its weight caused the Thing to fly into the wall so hard it left a massive, deep dent in the metal. I heard a lot of really important-sounding stuff inside its body go crunch. It didn't die, but it collapsed to the ground as I let go of its center of gravity, rising woozily to its feet and shaking its head, looking around in a daze. When its gaze landed on me, it whimpered and limped off down the corridor in the direction I'd come.

"Yeah," I wheezed, the hunger pangs suddenly amplifying as the adrenaline faded. "You better run. Asshole."

I fell down.

I woke up some time later. I had no idea how long, down here, but the Thing hadn't come back to finish me off so that was a plus. My stomach felt like it was full of razor blades and I could barely see straight. My eyesight kept going fuzzy. I needed food. Specifically, I needed sugar.

I stood up and stumbled through the dark doorway. I tried not to think of the implications of my brother's footprints vanishing into this room. Oh, gods, please don't be dead, Leon. I bit back tears as my fingers fumbled along the wall just inside the room, trying to find anything that might help me navigate. My fingers found some kind of little switch on the wall, and I flipped it up. Shockingly bright light burned into my retinas, and I squinted my eyes shut against it.

When I opened them again, I was met with a horrifying sight.

The room was maybe sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. Both of the lengthwise walls were covered in stacked cages. Animal carcasses in varying states of putrefaction lay in about half of them. All of them had that dark, greasy oil pouring out of their rotting orbital sockets and mouths. A few of the ones that had visible skin left (and not some liquefied puddle that used to be flesh and blood) had patches of scales here and there that shimmered in the obnoxiously bright torches. To my right, one of the larger cages had its door open, viciously torn and bent from the inside. A nest of rotting meat and feces was piled up inside.

The smell didn't hit me until I moved further into the room. I wasn't sure how it hadn't reached the door--or maybe it had, and I'd been too preoccupied with a giant bony red-skinned monster trying to eat my face? Mysteries of the universe, and all that. I brought my shirt up over my snout and tried to breathe through my nose. No need to smell it and taste it.

With all these corpses everywhere, all of them ferals of some sort it seemed, I noticed a distinct lack of my brother's body. I breathed a sigh of relief, then immediately regretted it because I had to breathe in again and I almost gagged. I looked around for anything that would solve the mystery of the disappearing Leon, and saw two doors leading out of this room--one at the far end, and one across from me. The dust in this room was heavily disturbed from the creature that had been living in here, so I couldn't tell which way Leon had gone for sure, but it didn't seem like there had been much activity in front of the door across from me, so I hustled down to the far end of the room as fast as I could to get away from the reek.

No matter how fast I ran, I couldn't run fast enough to get away from that horrid stink of rot and death. I practically slammed into the door as I opened it, but when I turned the knob and tried to push through, the door came to a sudden stop. I let out a long string of curse words as my shoulder bashed into the door and started to throb. Through the tiny sliver of open doorway, I saw half a dozen heavy objects pushed up against the door. A barricade--apparently Leon had had a run-in with the Thing and fled through here.

Well, there was no getting through that. I supposed I could try using my gravi-whatever-Agnes-called-it, but I was already on the verge of puking, I was so shaky. I wasn't sure what would happen if I used my Gift again. Seemed like a lousy trick to tie it to my blood-sugar, but nothing to do about it right now. I turned around to hustle back toward the other end of the room. Despite the hideous stench, I paused to consider my options. I had no idea where the other door would lead, but it was definitely in the wrong direction from Leon. I could go back in the spooky corridor and keep following it down, hoping I'd find another door into wherever Leon had gone. I decided to opt for the corridor. At least it wasn't so painfully bright. There were also markedly fewer liquefying carcasses.

As I turned to head back toward the door I came in, I stopped dead in my tracks to stare at one of the carcasses in a cage stacked above a few of the others on the wall. A tiny, half-rotted paw with a scaly patch surrounded by ruddy brown fur drooped out of the cage, dripping one long, vile trail of brownish-green rot slime to the floor below.

It was not the paw of a feral. It was the paw of an Anthro.

I reached a shaky hand up to the cage and yanked on the door. Locked, but rusted. I clambered up to the cage and peered into the darkness. The face that stared back, sightless and practically liquified beyond recognition, nudged at my brain. I knew it was familiar, but I couldn't place where.

Then it clicked.

It had been well over a year, but I remembered thinking she had been so sweet, scared. I couldn't remember her name. She'd only been in the Pit for a few weeks before the Warden had come down from the Spike to snatch the little Vulpin girl up. I looked in the next cage over. Crammed into the back corner was the mostly-putrefied corpse of another Anthro, but one long, drooping ear told me it had been a fellow Lepid.

I frantically clambered over to the next cage. Another Lepid.

The Warden hadn't been taking prisoners for sex. He'd been taking them as guinea pigs to test the serum's lethality. And clearly, it had been lethal.

I dropped off the stacks of cages and scrambled out into the corridor to vomit profusely into the dust. I gagged and dry-heaved for over a minute before my stomach finally recovered. I put my hands on my knees. The last few... hours? minutes?... had been a real doozy, and even my forced nap hadn't helped calm my swimming head. And now this.

I shuffled down the corridor, trying to slow the spinning walls. I needed to replenish, or I was going to pass out again, and one of these times I wasn't going to wake back up. Unfortunately, I didn't think I was going to find food down here. Far as I could tell, Leon and I had been the only ones down here in ages. Except we couldn't have been, of course. The bodies of the Anthropa, liquified as they had been, had to have been from within the past couple years. Someone had been down here. The Warden, for sure. Maybe just him. Maybe... Gods, please tell me it was just him...

I glanced down and noticed footprints. Very recent footprints, or at least recent enough that the dust hadn't settled all the way back into them yet. They moved several times back and forth to and from the room I'd just left. How had I missed those? My head must have been foggier than I'd thought.

The prints were pretty big. I had a good idea whose they were, and my heart sank. What the Hells, Agnes? Was she responsible for the red monster that had almost eaten my face? For the Anthro corpses? Had she killed all those kids just to perfect the greasy black crud she'd stuck us with? I shivered hard. Gods, I hoped my kitten was okay. Rika's fears were starting to infect me, now. I mean, she'd had a point. Agnes had dialed down the serum once already after Val's death, and it had still killed Kiba. And the fetus inside me was about the size of my palm, at most.

I pushed the thoughts out of my head and kept moving. Nothing to do about it now, and for better or worse, there would be no more serum injections. The experiment was toast. Even though it put me and my unborn--and pretty much everyone I cared about--in a new world of danger, I couldn't help but feel a little relieved. The whole thing had seemed like salvation, in the beginning, but now that I'd seen what I'd seen, I was happy to let it burn. Heck, I'd offer the torch.

I followed Agnes's footprints forward down the poorly lit corridor, nowhere else to go at the moment. They moved back and forth from here to some point further down the hall, but they also looked really old. Not as old as the ridiculously thick dust, obviously, but maybe older than Leon's and my stay began at the Spike. Maybe a lot older. If that was true, it meant Agnes had been complicit in the deaths of the Anthros, if not directly responsible. My head spun at the thought. Was there any part of her that had actually been as good as I'd seen? As kind? I slowed down after stumbling twice--my head was swimming so hard I couldn't really see straight anymore. Things kept going fuzzy then sharpening again.

Eventually, I saw an end to the corridor far ahead. The footprints ended sooner than that, however, at a door on my left. A flat door, with no knob, that split down the middle instead of swinging on hinges. A large red CALL button stood out on the wall next to it. Elevator. I felt like I'd walked a lot further than the distance I had walked from the elevator to the ladder shaft on the first floor, but maybe not. These corridors were so flat and same-y that it was hard to say. I thought it had been hundreds of feet, maybe a thousand--but maybe not? Maybe the twistiness of the hallways above made the distance seem shorter somehow? My head spun trying to think about it, so I stopped.

There was another set of footprints in the dust leading from the elevator to the end of the corridor. These footprints traveled back and forth much more often, and much more recently. Whatever was at the end of this hall, the Mender had visited it a lot--maybe daily. Something to do with the experiment, it had to be. Maybe where she made the serum?

I stumbled forward slowly. Not far down the hall, the tracks started going to different doors. Two on the left, and one further down at the very end of the hall some hundred feet away. I moved to the first one on the left and pulled it open.

The dim room held multiple tables with beakers, burners (currently cold), vials and tubes of all shapes and sizes, and dozens of racks of substances I couldn't hope to name. Some were dull powders of yellow or gray, others swirling liquids of clear, green, or even rainbow hues. Next to them, brown, opaque bottles held labels marked with names like IODINE and CALADEL EXTRACT and RUBBING ALCOHOL. A tray also held six needles in a neat row.

I stared at the lab for a full minute, at least. It felt strange to stand in the place where the serum had been mixed, and admittedly a little infuriating. This was where Agnes had mixed the poison that had murdered Val and Kiba. Not twenty feet away from me. I had a sudden urge to smash every inch of the place to pieces, but stopped myself. I needed to search, find clues, answers. But my head was full of cotton swabs and there was no way I could pay attention to any of this right now. Still, had to try.

I started digging through the cabinets under the tables, but found nothing but dusty equipment whose purpose was entirely foreign to me and extra vials and beakers. I found a few fuel pellets for the burners and plucked them up. Could come in handy. No pockets, so I just held them in my hand. For the first time, I regretted not wearing the fancy clothes Warden Reggie had supplied for us in our suite. Lots of them had pockets.

Searching the cabinets also dug up an unexpected treasure: food. Well--it kind of smelled like food, anyway. I found some kind of weird brown bar, maybe four inches long and half as wide, tightly wrapped in wax paper. I could see nuts and oats mixed into whatever unappetizing brown gunk gave the thing its shape. It looked like dirt but smelled like butter. I decided I was too hungry to concern myself with the idiosyncrasy and shoved it in my mouth.

It tasted like butter and crunched like nuts. Under any other circumstances, I probably would have gagged, but right now it tasted like a gift from the gods. Heck, maybe it was. Who stores food in an alchemy lab??

I sat on the floor and rested, letting the food bar digest a little and waiting for the room to stop spinning. It was a slow, gradual affair, but eventually I got my bearings. The room, I could see now, was completely spotless. The layers of dirt had been scrubbed from every inch of the room, and I hadn't noticed it before, but the doors--both the doors I'd seen on this wall led into this room, from opposite ends--each had a foot mat in front of them, to wipe your feet. I'd actually tracked some serious dirt into the room because I'd stumbled right over the mat without noticing it.

I also saw some kind of shiny silver case in the far corner. I must have skipped right over it in my swimmy sugar-deprived state, thinking it was part of the wall or something, but the metal was different, sleeker-looking. It was vaguely egg-shaped and gleamed in the faint light of the electric torches. It also had a window on it, a little circular port to view the contents inside. I cautiously stood up--practically weeping for joy when I didn't fall over in dizziness--and padded closer to the metal egg.

Its design was unlike anything I'd seen thus far. It was so perfectly symmetrical and sleek, it seemed unnatural, sorcerous even. No Anthropus smith, no matter how skilled, could possibly make such a perfect shape. It made the fur on the back of my neck stand up just looking at it. Something about its presence also felt... ugh, where was Leon when I needed a wordsmith? More important than important... Portentous! It felt portentous. Made me not want to go anywhere near it.

And yet, I knew I had to. I moved up slowly, my heart racing the closer I got. Finally, I reached the narrow metal table where the silver egg sat, and I bent down slightly to look in the porthole. At first, I couldn't see anything inside except swirling mist. I gently touched the metal--ice cold. Then the mist settled and the egg's resident was revealed.

It... was another egg.

This one was bizarre, unlike any of the pictures I'd seen in the suite's library of feral fauna, or the Saurians' eggs, though comparable to those in size. It was perhaps two feet tall, but instead of a normal eggshell, it was leathery--no, not leathery. Scaled! The egg had scales, and some sort of bony, spike-like protrusions ringing the top. Gods, I felt sorry for whatever creature had to push this out.

I also noted that the surface of the egg was split slightly, but the cut looked surgical, precise. This egg hadn't tried to hatch, it had been sliced open. I couldn't see what creature lay inside, and maybe that was for the best. This thing looked freaky as Hells. I did see that the wound was slowly leaking an inky black oil-like goop, dripping slowly like sludge, probably made viscous by the cold of the silver egg.

No freaking wonder the serum had killed Val and Kiba. It was amazing any of us had survived this crap in our systems! It was amniotic fluid from a freaking monster egg. I shuddered hard and whimpered aloud. What was this garbage doing to my kitten? Be okay, baby, I prayed to it. Please be okay...

I ran from the room and out into the corridor, hands on my hips. The pressure from my arms started pulling down my torn pants, but I ignored it, trying to focus on calming my raging heartbeat. The horror of it all... was that dog-thing the one that laid the egg? Or another victim of its properties? I suspected the latter. No feral canines I'd read about laid eggs--that was a purely non-mammalian thing, far as I knew. And it had looked distinctly reptilian, with the scales and the horny protrusions. What was going on down--?

I heard a ding! as the elevator arrived on this floor.

I didn't think. I just bolted. I ran down the corridor, making frantically for the door at the end of the hall. I suddenly did not want to be in Mender Agnes's presence ever again. I didn't know if she was a monster or not, but I didn't want to find out. I reached the door, yanked at it, and learned it was locked. Panicked, I threw a frustrated hammer-fist down at the door and instinctively warped the gravity around it, turning my little fist into a powerful mallet. The door smashed inward, the lock exploding out of the jamb and the center of the metal door caving in like a boulder had struck it. I rushed inside.

Darkness enveloped me as the broken door swung to rest against its jamb again, not closed, but allowing in no light. The room was uncomfortably warm and humid, and a low, rhythmic rumbling that sounded like...

... breathing...

Two massive red orbs winked into existence in the darkness somewhere ahead of me. I couldn't tell how far in the dark, but close enough that I wished it was farther. The breathing turned into a low, guttural growl that shook the very floor I stood on. The worst part, though, was the voice. Whatever this giant horror was, it spoke to me.

YOU.

I froze.

YOU HAVE MY BABY'S BLOOD IN YOU. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?? WHERE ARE MY BABIES?!

The creature in the darkness roared, and I cannot find words to allow you to fully comprehend the sound. It was so absolutely loud it shattered existence, ripped away sensation until nothing was left in reality but that gut-liquefying bellow and unadulterated terror. I couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to, and gods did I want to. I wanted to flee screaming from this hellish darkness and whatever god had made that unbearably loud noise.

Instead, I stood frozen in place, urine pouring down my leg, tears streaming from my eyes, and ears ringing ceaselessly.

The door behind me burst open. Light blazed in the room. I saw my tormentor and screamed.

* * *

The creature was easily twenty feet tall and almost twice as long, bound to the wall by its long neck with chains twice as thick as my entire body. Its black, scaly hide was broken by occasional horny protrusions, and a set of bat-like wings folded against itself. Its obscenely long neck ended in a reptilian face with two curling ram horns on either side of it, somehow blacker than the shadowy scales everywhere else on it. The only things that broke the monotone were a series of dark green stripes across its belly scales, its yellow-white jagged teeth, and two glowing red eyes that were almost as big each as my torso. Noxious black smoke roiled out of its flaring nostrils at the end of its long, beak-like snout, giving me a momentary sense of strange familiarity.

The creature lurched forward, as if the movement pained it. Ebony claws clacked against the metal floor as it stepped toward me, each footfall making the whole room shake. Rubble and debris clattered down from overhead, and I realized that, far above us, the night sky could just barely be seen. That felt significant, but my brain was too busy being frozen in terror to comprehend just why.

YOU KILLED THEM! YOU KILLED MY BABIES! YOU TOOK THEIR BLOOD FOR YOUR WICKED SCIENCES! DEMON! HELLSPAWN! I WILL DESTROY YOU!!

** ** It roared again, and opened its mouth. That slick black crud dripped out, and it reared back its head, a noise like a gurgling choke in its throat, before dipping back down and coughing. I saw its long, forked tongue curl up to reveal some kind of opening under it, and a jet of that black goo shot forward in a long, thick stream. I had the distinct impression I didn't want to get that crap on me, especially when it came directly from the source instead of a diluted serum that was still deadly enough to kill two people, but I was frozen in place. This was it. I was going to die. The world seemed to slow down as I watched the deadly oil-stream approach, arcing gracefully in a line toward me.

Then I was moving, but not of my own volition. I felt a rib crack from the force of getting slammed aside, and the stream blasted the floor where I'd stood a split second ago. The metal bubbled and warped, then melted and caved downward into a pool of molten slag. I landed on the ground ten feet away and wheezed. My broken rib jabbed me as I tried to breathe and I gasped involuntarily, making it worse.

"Stop!" a familiar voice cried. "Korrix, stop! Please!"

I looked down at the hands around my waist. One was lean and muscular, covered in soft gray fur. The other was made of a sleek, dull metal. I started crying again. Leon had saved me.

The creature bellowed, but stepped back again at my brother's plea.

"She didn't kill your children, Korrix. She's a victim. Like me."

The creature snarled and sat on its haunches, looking oddly cat-like. I felt the wave of terror abate from me, like a hundred heavy, suffocating blankets all getting pulled off me at once. I took a shuddering, shallow breath and rolled onto my back, sobbing. Leon's face appeared over me. He looked haunted. "Hey, sis," he whispered, stroking my cheek.

"Leon?" I whimpered. "W-what's happening? What is that thing?"

THIS_THING_ HAS A NAME, PATHETIC CHILD.

Leon glanced up and scowled. "Hey, come on. Ease off, Korrix. She's just scared. She's never met a dragon before."

My stomach churned and I felt ready to barf up the food bar I'd just eaten.

He did not just say--

"D-dragon...?" I whispered hoarsely.

I turned to face the creature, and sure enough, it fit the rough description I'd seen in books of ancient history. They weren't real, though, at least not anymore. Dragons hadn't been seen since the Awakening. Both humans and Anthropa had wiped the dragons out during their war. I wanted to articulate all this, calmly tell the creature before me, "So sorry but you can't exist, goodbye" but instead I mumbled incoherently and clutched my brother's arms.

"It's okay," Leon muttered, holding me tight. "It's alright. I'm here."

The creature--the_dragon_, oh gods--simply sat and stared at us. I couldn't look away. I just whimpered and pawed at my brother. I'd never felt so small and pathetic and insignificant in my life, but a creature of myth and legend towered high above me and stared with the same contempt one might for an ant that was crawling and biting on her foot.

"Okay," Leon finally said, sitting me up. "Are you alright? I hit you kinda hard."

"Ribs," I muttered, finally tearing my eyes from the dragon to look at him. "Broke one."

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, kissing my nose. "But better that than getting hit by Korrix's acid breath. You'd be dead."

The dragon cocked its head at him. INDEED. HOW DID YOU DO THAT, LITTLE ONE? YOU MOVED AS IF YOU KNEW IT WAS COMING.

"Because I did. There are... things we haven't discussed yet, Great One." He cleared his throat. "This is my sister, Nola. I told you about her, remember?"

The dragon actually dipped its head down. I DID NOT KNOW. I AM SORRY. I THOUGHT... YOU WERE HER, COME TO TORMENT ME AGAIN. I SMELLED MY CHILDER'S BLOOD IN YOUR BLOOD AND... LOST CONTROL.

It suddenly clicked into place. "The egg. The egg in the lab. That's... that's your baby?"

"Yeah," Leon said soberly. "Agnes was using the amniotic fluid from her eggs to make the serum she's been pumping into us." Again, I felt like throwing up. He turned back to it--her, I supposed. "She didn't want it any more than I did, Korrix. The Mender, Agnes, she thought she could make Anthropa be more likely to be born with Gifts if she used it."

The dragon lifted her head to the great hole overhead and wailed. Her body shook with the effort, and the very walls vibrated. Somewhere far above us, hundreds or more feet, I could hear faint screaming and shouting in response.

Above us.

In the Pit.

She was the source of the smoke that roiled from the Pit. I turned to her. "K... Korrix?"

The dragon drooped her head and vibrated. I KNEW. SOMEHOW I KNEW THEY COULD NOT BE ALIVE ANYMORE. SHE HAS SENTENCED MY KIND TO DEATH WITH HER ACTIONS. TO MAKE... 'GIFTS.' I HAVE NO WORDS FOR SUCH VILLAINY.

Her words vibrated my head, and it finally dawned on me that she wasn't opening her mouth to speak. She was talking in our heads. This just got weirder and weirder.

I thought of the kitten in my belly, how I would feel if someone ripped it out and used it to make bad medicine, and I started crying all over again. I had truly thought Agnes was a good person. I knew she was willing to do some questionable crap, but it had been in pursuit of saving lives, of ending the War. But this... this was heinous.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I had no idea."

Surely my voice couldn't have carried, but the dragon responded as if she'd heard it clear as day. AS AM I. MY MIND IS... NOT WHAT IT WAS. I HAVE BEEN TRAPPED DOWN HERE FOR TIME IMMEMORIAL. IT WAS HUMANS WHO PLACED ME IN THESE CHAINS, BUT THE FRAILTIES OF MORTALITY DO NOT EXIST TO MY KIND. STARVED AND WEAK, I SAT IN DARKNESS, BUT DID NOT DIE. WHEN AN ANTHROPUS CAME AND BROUGHT LIGHT, I THOUGHT MY SALVATION HAD ARRIVED, BUT HE TURNED OUT TO BE JUST AS VILE AS THE HUMANS.

"He..?" I wondered.

"The Warden," Leon replied, his face grim. He turned back to Korrix. "Great One, she comes. We don't have much time. You are rightfully furious, but Agnes is the only one who knows how to release your bonds and free you. You can't kill her, at least not until she does so, or else you could be trapped down here forever."

The dragon cocked her head at him and narrowed her eyes. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?

"My Gift is to See. The future, mostly. Until very recently, I had no control over it. I would simply get premonitions, often in dreams. Earlier today, however, I activated my Gift on instinct. Now I can do it with a little concentration. I don't know if being near the Maw and your fumes made it happen, or if we were Gifted from birth, but it seems awfully auspicious so many Gifted wound up here, where we could help rescue you."

Korrix considered this, then nodded. INDEED. IT PAINS ME TO SEEK HELP FROM THE SAME CREATURES AS MY CAPTORS, BUT... I HAVE NO CHOICE. I MUST TRUST YOU ARE NOT ALL SO HEINOUS AS MY TORMENTOR.

I closed my eyes and forced my emotions under control. "Leon, how long until she gets here?"

Leon glanced up and sighed. "Right about now."

The door burst open, and Agnes entered. Her Scrofus guards were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they weren't allowed to know about the dragon in the basement. Made sense, I supposed. She looked from us to the dragon, then back to us. She closed her eyes and tears squeezed out the sides. I think she understood what was about to happen.

She didn't even put up a fight as Leon bull-rushed her, driving his shoulder into her midsection and slamming her against the wall. With a swift kick and a twist of her arm, he had her on one knee with her entire torso effectively disabled. "Move and your arm snaps like a fucking twig," he snarled.

Agnes didn't look up. She just nodded. "I know what you want, kiddo. I'll do it. Experiment's a bust anyway. Least I can do."

"Damn right it's the least," I growled. Despite the heat of my words, my lip quivered. "Look at me, Agnes." She squeezed her eyes shut instead. "Fucking look at me."

She finally turned her face up, and the misery and shame on it only made me angrier. "I saw the ferals, Agnes. I saw the Anthros. I saw the egg. How _could_you?"

"I..." Her own lips quivered, and she started sobbing. "I wanted it to end. The War. Thought the gods'd given us the ultimate chance, you know? A dang dragon. The Autocracy ain't got no dragon. When Reggie told me, I signed on to this cockamamy scheme in a lick. I just knew we could find a way to save ourselves. But as time went on, I realized it was gonna take ugly doings to make what I needed. I... I kept tellin' myself it was for people like you. Innocents. When we wasn't fighting no more, we could focus on bettering ourselves, our government. But it just... got outta control..."

Leon took a deep breath to steady himself. "How did you get an egg from her? You don't have two dragons."

"I synthesized dragon sperm using the dragon's own reproductive material, and inseminated her."

Korrix shuddered. I blanched.

"You mean... she was impregnated by herself?"

MY BABIES... Korrix made a halting, keening noise. Was she... crying?

Agnes drooped in my brother's grip. "Take me to the panel on the wall over there. Give me a few minutes and I'll suss out how to deactivate the chains." Leon hesitated, but eventually pulled the bigger woman to her feet and led her forward, her arm still twisted behind her. She didn't try to escape. She was apparently resigned to her fate.

We left her to do her work under the watchful eye of Korrix, who seemed remarkably restrained considering the murderer of her children was within spitting distance. Leon held me close and nuzzled my shoulder, and I wrapped one arm around him and stroked his back. "What are we gonna do, Nollie?" he whispered. "How do we all get out of here without the Scrofa killing us?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, babe," I replied, unconsciously mimicking Rika's term of endearment. "We'll figure something out. First we have to get the others. We're not leaving without Rika, or Tanya or Patrice."

He nodded, licking my neck. "You should probably change clothes, too. You look a mess."

I irritably swatted his nose. "I've had a long day, asshole. Also, I..." I looked down at my wet pant leg and tried hard not to cry in embarrassment. "Korrix scared me pretty bad."

Leon nodded. "Don't feel bad. I pissed myself when I met her, too. She has that effect." He stepped out into the hallway and came back in holding a bundle of clothes, which he dropped at my feet. "I wasn't sitting on my ass down here, though. I was able to use my Gift again, got up to the suite. No guards down here, and no guards on the top level. Made it stupid easy to sneak up to the suite and back."

When he also handed me a wet washcloth, I threw my arms around him and kissed him hard. I didn't care if the dragon saw, or judged us. I loved him so damn much right then. He returned the gesture passionately, hands wandering to my ass cheeks and massaging them. Gods, if we'd been alone right then, I'd have fucked his brains out. Reluctantly I finally pulled away from him. "Still mad at you," I said breathily, though my wet crotch and hard nipples weren't really selling the seriousness of my words.

Leon nodded guiltily. "I know. I'm sorry, Nollie."

I grabbed his face in my hands, squishing his furry cheeks and staring into his electric blue eyes, mirrors of my own. "We need you. Rika and me. And the little ones coming. We're scared too, Leon, but we don't get to run away. You get to choose. We need you to choose better. Please."

He blinked, and tears fell into his fur, and he nodded vigorously. "Never again. I promise. I love you, both of you, more than life itself. It just... all hit me at once and I panicked. I won't let it happen again."

I wrapped my arms around his waist and nuzzled my head under his chin. "Okay. I guess I can forgive you this time. But only because you're so cute."

He snorted. "Seeing as how we're identical, that seems a little narcissistic."

I licked his neck. "We may have the same fur and eyes, but you wear it better."

"That's ridiculous," he said, and kissed me again.

I finally pulled away from him, wiped my face and legs with the washcloth, and changed into the clothes he'd brought down. There were two pairs of shorts, one black-and-white checkered skirt, and six different blouses to choose from. Apparently, he wanted me to have a selection. I inevitably picked the skirt and a small forest-green top with spaghetti straps and no midriff. Might as well be as unrestricted as possible, I decided, considering we were probably going to have to fight.

Leon stared at me for a long time. I shifted uncomfortably. "What??"

Leon said, "Fuck, you're hot."

My cheeks heated and my ear spasmed. "Now who's the narcissist?" I mumbled.

"You wear it better," he said with a dopey grin. I couldn't help but grin back, the big doofus.

There was a loud CLACK! behind us, and the silvery metal collar around Korrix's throat clattered against he wall behind her. The dragon's neck was pale and raw underneath where it had been--the scales had apparently attached themselves to its surface after hundreds of years, and it had peeled the scales off with it. Korrix gasped and gingerly touched the raw flesh underneath.

I DO NOT THINK THOSE WILL GROW BACK. I WILL WEAR THIS BRAND FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. IF I EVER SEE A HUMAN, I WILL DEVOUR THEM ON SIGHT.

"No humans left," I said. "They died after the war between us."

Korrix regarded me carefully before replying, LIKE THERE ARE NO DRAGONS LEFT?

I blinked. "Uh. Point taken."

She turned to Agnes, the hatred unmistakable in her eyes. AS FOR YOU, VILE CREATURE...

Agnes dropped to her knees, lowered her head, and waited.

I couldn't take it. I ran in front of Agnes and held up my hands. "Don't! Please!"

IT IS UNWISE TO PLACE YOURSELF BETWEEN A DRAGON AND HER MEAL, MORTAL.

I gulped. "I-I know. And I know what she did was unforgivable. And if you decide to kill her, I understand. But... please don't. Killing her won't bring your children back. It won't undo what she's done. But she's the second-smartest person I ever met." I couldn't help but glance behind me and glare at Agnes. "She killed the smartest." Agnes caved in a little more on herself. "But she could help others. Maybe even stop something like what happened to you from happening ever again."

YOU WOULD STOP ME FROM MY VENGEANCE? Strangely, the words didn't sound angry. They sounded... thoughtful.

"No," I said. "It's yours by right, if you choose. I wouldn't stop you even if I could. I only ask you to consider what I've said." I reluctantly stepped back to my brother and watched, biting my lip. I couldn't honestly say why I'd interceded. Maybe because, no matter how many atrocities Agnes piled on top of herself, I still cared about her. I still believed a good woman with good intentions was suffocating under all those horrible choices, if she was just given the opportunity to redeem herself.

Agnes said quietly, "You're a sweet girl, Nola. Don't ever change." She looked up at the dragon. "I don't want no redemption. I did terrible things, and I'd do 'em again if I thought they'd help stop the War. I ain't repentant. You may as well just kill me."

And for a long, horrible second, I expected her to do just that. But despite the fury plain in her glowing ember eyes, Korrix reared back. COWARD, she sneered. YOU THINK DEATH WILL SAVE YOU FROM WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. IT WILL NOT. I WILL UNLEASH MY VENGEANCE, BUT NOT ON YOU. GREATER VENGEANCE LIES IN LIVING WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR HIDEOUS ACTIONS. YOU DISGUST ME. With that, Korrix turned away, looking up the long shaft of the Maw to the starless night sky above.

"Wait!" Leon called. Korrix turned to him curiously. "Please. Up top, there are others. Prisoners, like us. Like you. Don't hurt them. The Scrofa are guards, though. They're as vile as the Warden."

Korrix cocked her head. SCROFA...? AH, THE PIG-MEN. YES. I WILL TAKE A FEW AS A MEAL. THANK YOU FOR THIS INFORMATION, LITTLE ONE.

I finally found my voice again. I had a question and I couldn't rest until it was answered. "K-Korrix? The serum she gave us. Will it hurt my kitten?"

Korrix strode forward. I felt each step in the ground. Her mass was more than my brain could handle. It seemed impossible any creature could grow so large--when she reared her head up to its full height, she was nearly thirty feet tall. Her enormous head swung down until it was right in front of me. She sniffed me once, and I coughed as the black fumes from her nostrils roiled over me. She closed her eyes and touched her snout to my tummy. It was surprisingly warm; for some reason I thought it would be cold, like a lizard's.

I CAN FEEL THEIR HEARTBEATS. THEY ARE REGULAR. YOUR HATCHLINGS ARE SAFE, SO FAR AS I CAN TELL. I PRAY YOUR MOTHERHOOD GOES BETTER THAN MINE.

With that, she leaped up into the shaft above, the wind from her wings pressing us back. Her claws dug into the rocky surface of the Maw, and she began climbing up into the night sky, great black wings spread for balance, blotting out the faint outline of the Maw's opening far, far above. Leon and I held hands, watching her as she went, staring in awe at the raw power of her form.

Then I blinked. Wait--'they?'

I felt the blood drain from my face. "Oh gods dammit, Leon, you knocked me up with twins."

"Yeah," he said in a distant, dreamy voice, "I know. I had a dream about it."